cleaning fish and feeding plants

how to clean a betta fishbowl

Friday is the day I clean out my Betta fishbowls, and water plants. The two go hand-in-hand because I give the plants the water that comes out of the fishbowls. I thought to make a step-by-step post here, as I've learned a few things in the past months about doing this. What follows is just how it works best for me. To clean the bowls, I first get out all the materials: an empty, clean milk jug (1 gallon), betta water conditioner, a fish cup with a lid (the fish come from the pet store in these), liquid thermometer, and a five-gallon bucket plus a few extra watering cans.

Start with clean hands. First step is to lift out the decorations and/or plastic plants, scoop some water out into a bucket (so the fishbowl doesn't overflow when you put your hand in) and gently catch the fish in the cup. Lower the cup into the water sideways, wait for the fish to swim into it, then tip it upwards and lift out. Lid must be placed on- these fish can and will jump! I once came home and found Pinkie on the floor, he's lucky to have survived that.

Side story: I used to put the cup in the bowl suddenly, and the fish would get pulled into the cup by the sudden backflow of water. But then I learned that if bettas get roughed around in the water like that, it can mess up their swim bladder and throw off their balance. Quite a few times on cleaning day, my fishies would be listing near the top or bottom of their bowl afterwards, nosedown and seemingly unable to keep themselves upright. They're usually all right again within a day, but I didn't like seeing them go through that stress. So now I'm very gentle.

Next I remove the decorations from the bowl and rinse them under hot water.

Then pour all the water out of the bowl into a bucket or large watering can.

I pamper my plants in a way. I give the initial poured-off water to plants that are sensitive to chlorine and do better with the aged water that has sat in fishbowls all week. This goes into one watering can. The straight-out-of-tap water from rinsing gravel (next step) goes into a separate bucket, for the other plants.

Clean the fishbowl and gravel by running very hot water into the bowl, agitating it with one hand to stir up any debris or fish poop, and pouring it off into the bucket. I rub the inner surface of the bowl with my hand as well, in case there's any algae or something. NEVER use soap! It will kill the fish. Hot water only. I do this step two or three times until the stirred water looks clean.

Replace the decorations into the bowl and smooth out the gravel.

Fill the gallon jug with warm water, adding proper measured amount of betta water conditioner. Pour this new water into the clean fishbowl. If you cup your hand inside the bowl and pour over your hand, it will break up the flow and avoid knocking over all the decorations or plants you've arranged in there.

Test the temperature of the water- for bettas (as far as I know) it should be between 74 and 86 degrees. Higher than that will kill your fish, as we have learned from sad experience. If the water is too warm, I let it sit a while or sometimes even put the jug in the fridge to cool it down.

I dry off the outside of the bowl, because I don't like water spots on the glass.

Replace the bowl in its usual location. The next step is to float your fish in the bowl, so the old water he's in will be the same as the new water in the bowl. A sudden change in water temperature can put the fish into shock. To do this, I use a plastic sandwich baggie. Remove the lid from the fish cup and put the baggie over the entire cup.

Using two hands, very gradually tip the cup sideways, holding the baggie tight to the cup sides with one hand, supporting underneath the baggie with the other, turning until the baggie and cup are reversed and the fish is floating in the baggie under the cup. Dumping the fish suddenly from the cup into the baggie can cause that problem with swim bladder balance that I mentioned earlier.

Now grasp the edges of the baggie with one hand and slowly ease the cup out with the other. Take your fish in its baggie

and float him in his bowl. I always leave mine there for at least twenty minutes- while I clean the next bowl or water the plants.

When some time has passed, test the water temperatures by dipping your fingers from one hand, one in and one out of the baggie. You can easily feel if the water is the same or one side is colder. 

When the fish-in-baggie water is the same temp as the bowl water, slowly and gently tip the baggie until he can swim out into the bowl. Replace the lid on top.

For my bowl that has a plant growing on top, there are a few extra steps. I set the lid-plus-plant over a mixing bowl to keep the roots from getting damaged, while I'm cleaning the fishbowl.

Before replacing it, I rinse the roots off just in case there's some debris or dead plant matter. Usually I rinse off the lid as well.

This may sound like a lot of steps, but it's become routine and I get it all done within an hour or perhaps an hour and a half. Including watering the plants.

I do this while the fish are floating in their baggies. My tender or finicky plants get the water that first came out of the fishbowls. This is a must for my Dracanea and Spider Plants. The water from rinsing gravel is usually too hot to go on plants right away- the shock of temperature difference can hurt the plants (just like it does the fish). If I don't want to wait for it to cool, I dump ice cubes in.

In the summer I add liquid plant food to the bucket before pouring the water into watering cans and giving it to my plants, but in winter when they have less light and are not growing much, I just give them the plain fish-water. I figure the fish waste and little debris from their uneaten food is a good bit of extra nutrients for my plants. Fish cleaning happens once a week, and most of my plants are on a once-a-week or once-every-two-weeks watering schedule. So it makes it easy to remember. With two bowls to clean, I usually have more than enough water for all the plants, including those outside.

Happy fish!

and happy plants.